Here is the official TMCC mission statement from 2015, before President Hilgersom’s arrival: "Truckee Meadows Community College promotes student success, academic excellence and access to lifelong learning by supporting high-quality education and services within our diverse community." (Emphasis added) There is accountability here - the institution dedicates itself to support education and services with clear (and assessable) goals - student success, academic excellence, and access to lifelong learning. It is centered on the institution from the outset, and holds the institution accountable.
In the midst of the pandemic, when faculty were consumed with delivering quality instruction through unfamiliar modalities, and most of us didn’t really have the bandwidth to monitor administrative shenanigans, a new mission statement was crafted and adopted starting in the 2021-22 academic year: "Create a future you will love with accessible, innovative educational opportunities at TMCC. Together we can make it happen." Suddenly there is a "you." We assume the "you" is the student, or more accurately, the customer. The word "academics" has disappeared, as has "student" and "success." The word "support" is gone. It's now aspirational, rather than a statement of accountability. Because there is no longer a defined role for academics, it's natural that we're asked to be more "fuzzy" because the overall mission is abstract and fuzzy itself.
With a mission like that, it’s no surprise that, increasingly, faculty members are no longer viewed as the institution's academic experts, and are asked to do our job the way the administration envisions it (being marketing content creators, software implementers, and taking on non-academic roles) while we still silently do the part of our jobs that we know is actually the most effective–engaging students, meeting their emotional and academic needs, finding the balance between support and rigor.
Investments in non-academic faculty and staff require justifications for those expenditures and expansions. Investments in software and licenses require the same. It is natural that those things are going to be assessed internally, and determined to be the reason for increased enrollment and retention, instead of faculty. Through this process, our everyday efforts are "disappeared", especially if we don't get on board with the apps, technology, software often purchased and implemented without faculty input but that can lead to more quantifiable data-driven reports and numbers.
Faculty should be concerned about mission creep. It is a pervasive attitude that we should be happy to do extra work outside of our contract (for no additional compensation in either time or money) because ultimately it's for the good of the students and the mission of the college. These should not be mutually exclusive - faculty should absolutely do what's best for students AND we should be paid fairly for all of the work we do in that capacity. If a faculty member expands their efforts in this regard, they should be justly compensated, and if it's not in the contract, it should not be expected. When some faculty do those things out of the "goodness of their hearts," it actually erodes our solidarity and splits us as a bargaining unit. If we give so willingly, the administration doesn't even hesitate to take.
Fortunately, the TMCC-NFA Contract restricts the ability of the administration to force administrative duties on faculty, but more protection will be needed as we prepare for the next round of negotiations.
Read More >> How mission creep crept up on TMCC
